


shift

by fan_nerd



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Body Switch AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fan_nerd/pseuds/fan_nerd
Summary: Yuuri looks at Victor with rapt attention, watching the Russian skater until his eyes close and he blacks out. When he opens his eyes again, Yuuri looks down at the familiar pale hands, surprised at how easily this body glides across the ice.He smiles, amused by his realistic imagination. Yuuri thinks,Victor must feel like this all the time,something like the weight of long hair tickling his back.Yuuri comes back to himself as Minako fusses over him, somewhat dazed by the out-of-body experience.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i live and die by the aesethetic™
> 
> shout outs to [@dark-as-night-sweet-as-sin](http://dark-as-night-sweet-as-sin.tumblr.com/) (my bff) for suggesting this. this fic was a #struggle. still luv u tho. ♥
> 
> ty to [@ingthing](http://ingthing.tumblr.com/) (Ing) and [@jellyfishfics](http://jellyfishfics.tumblr.com/) (Denny) for their support while i was finishing this. tysm for giving this a check!!!
> 
> and of course, thank you, yoi fandom!! honestly, i'm really very grateful for all the happiness and love i receive. it lifts my spirits tons. thank you guys sm, and i hope you enjoy this crazy fic. ♥
> 
> follow + chat w/ me on tumblr [@wbtrashking](http://wbtrashking.tumblr.com/)! i promise i am naught but an anxious bean. requests are currently still open, so check out [the info page](http://wbtrashking.tumblr.com/post/155214009873) and send one in. :')

“I’m just saying,” Yuuko enthusiastically starts, “Victor Nikiforov is amazing.”

Takeshi rolls his eyes next to her on the rink, skidding to a stop at the edge and knocking ice off of his boots. “Yes, I know. You’ve only told me a thousand times.” His dark eyes roam over to Yuuri, who is still out practicing figure eights with their instructor. “Aren’t you gonna wait for chubby over there to squeal about your dumb crush?”

“Hey, leave him alone.” The girl pouts, punching the boy in the shoulder. After a moment, she cups her hands around her mouth and shouts to her younger friend. “Yuuri!! Victor’s going to be skating in an hour or so. Do you wanna come to my place to watch him?”

Yuuri looks up with eager eyes, turning from the man on the rink and beaming at the girl. “Yeah!!”

Takeshi pulls a face, looking mostly crestfallen that he hadn’t been invited, and then he immediately puffs his chest out. “If he’s going, I’m going too!!”

“I thought you didn’t like Victor, Nishigori,” Yuuri says in his soft way, flushed with exertion and his perpetual haze of shyness.

“Well, maybe I lied!” Takeshi huffs, elbowing Yuuri in the side a bit as the younger boy stands awkwardly beside him in the changing room. “C’mon, let’s go get changed or we’ll miss it.”

“Okay,” Yuuri softly replies, unlacing his boots and putting them in his bag. The three of them hurry over to Yuuko’s place and gather around the television with varying levels of excitement. They eat snacks absently as the lineup is announced.

“Leading the junior division with an astounding short program score of ninety-two points,” the announcer introduces a familiar face, “Victor Nikiforov!”

Yuuko claps her hands and squeals. Yuuri contentedly rocks back and forth, dark eyes trained on the pale foreigner. Takeshi picks his nose and scoffs, but he does go silent when the music starts, undeniably drawn in by the young man and his swirling, beautiful hair.

When the music comes to a close, Yuuri suddenly crashes out and Victor stumbles on the television. For one long, terrifying moment, Yuuko’s family and Takeshi Nishigori go on high alert, trying to make sure Yuuri is okay. On screen, announcers and coaches and nurses are nearby, making sure Victor has not injured himself after he’s just completed one of history’s most memorable Junior FS programs.

In the end, Yuuri explains that he’d only felt a little woozy. He blinks sleep out of his eyes when his parents come to pick him up, waving goodbye to his older friends.

Eerily enough, on the other side of the sea, Victor is explaining in crisp Russian that he had just been light-headed, and after the medics give him a clean bill of health, he goes about his business and gets the gold medal he earned.

That is how the ordeal begins.

//

“I don’t know,” Yuuri mumbles softly, aligning his body with the balance beam and bringing his foot to the level of his shoulder. “I feel like I’m more suited for ballet than skating.”

“You won’t know until you try,” the older woman says, correcting his posture with gentle hands. He is gangly at thirteen and dreadfully solitary, even though the Nishigori boy and Yuuko are still something like friends to him. “The Ice Castle will let you practice any time you want, you know? That means if you get scared or worried or anything, you can go in there and let it all out. I’ve seen you skate, Yuuri. You’re amazing.”

The young man doesn’t respond, so she sighs quietly and helps him ease his body into a new drill. “Just think about it, okay?”

“Mmhmm,” Yuuri says, closing his eyes behind his glasses.

After he starts picking his weight up onto his left foot, he shatters quickly and his ballet instructor rushes to his side. “Yuuri? Yuuri!”

His dark eyes are dazed and unfocused, and when he opens his mouth to speak, the words certainly don’t sound Japanese.

“Yuuri, I don’t know what you’re saying, I’m sorry,” Minako babbles.

“ _English_ ,” Yuuri rasps, sounding so unlike himself that the former prima ballerina feels like she’s going to have a heart attack. “Yes?”

“I, er, yes,” She sputters, barely managing to answer his question.

As soon as Yuuri’s mouth opens again, his eyelids flit back and forth quickly and he’s come back to himself with a gasp. Latching onto the older woman, he speaks their native language. “Sorry,” he says softly, obviously shaken. “That was the strangest out-of-body experience in my life.”

“You can say that again,” Minako laughs, even though she’s bone-tired. “Should I take you to the hospital? Do you need to lie down?”

“No, it’s okay,” Yuuri wheezes, touching the wooden floorboards of the studio, as if making sure they won’t swallow him whole. “I just need a minute.” She lets him gather his wits, pick himself up, and go to the bathroom out in the hall before coming back to the balance beam.

They go through some easy cool down routines and end practice early. Minako finally says, “You know, you should talk to your parents if you aren’t feeling well. What happened back there?”

Yuuri pauses for a minute, adjusting his glasses with a small frown. “I don’t know. Maybe you were right, about taking ice skating more seriously.”

“Why do you say that?”

The adolescent stands outside of her ballet studio with his head hung low, and he looks away from her absently. “I felt like I had a daydream about spinning on the ice. Falling wasn’t fun, but it did feel great.” His limbs had felt _built_ for the ice; his heart had soared. Yuuri smiles slowly, looking at her with a soft flush on his cheeks. “I looked down, and I saw how tall I was, felt how easy it was to move, and I thought to myself, _this must be what he feels like_.”

There’s no doubt about whom Yuuri is referring to.

Victor Nikiforov is his idol. The boy has two posters of him on the walls of his bedroom already, and Victor’s figure skating career has only just begun.

If anyone could inspire Yuuri to give something new a chance, it would be him.

“I’m glad, then,” Minako jokes lightly, ruffling Yuuri’s hair. “If getting hit on the head managed to knock some sense into you, I guess I can’t be too mad.”

“Thanks.” Yuuri hurries home with a wave and she watches him go with a smile.

//

It’s been a long time since Yuuri has felt so nauseous. He’d performed terribly at his first Grand Prix, and all the world can see is what a horrible mess he’s become. For all the turmoil and the uphill battles and the late-night chats with his rink mate and best friend, Yuuri feels the crushing weight of disappointment.

He connects eyes with his idol, their paths cross, and Yuuri flees in tears. He remains depressed until he graduates, watching everything pass him by without an ounce of emotion, and yet, the tears won’t stop falling.

Yuuri eats to fill the void of nothingness he feels, eats until his stomach hurts and he passes out and cries because he feels absolutely nothing.

And then, finally, he _skates_. It feels like a dream, running through Victor’s routine, an indulgent pleasure, even though he can’t nail all the jumps and he’ll certainly never perform this like his idol can.

Victor’s blue, blue eyes flash in his vision when he closes his eyes, imagining that sensation from so many years ago, like he’d been in Victor’s very skates on the ice, gliding across the rink like he’d been floating.

 _How would Victor do this?_ Yuuri thinks, mimicking, channeling Victor’s personality to the best of his ability. His Russian is poor, learned from magazines and a handful of educational applications on his phone, but he tries to say cute things Victor would say, winks at odd times throughout the day.

When he gets home and gets to Hasetsu, he has the strange feeling that he’s being watched.

Yuuri feels like he’s warming up, his arms limber, his body fluid. The coach who is often photographed beside his star pupil, Victor, is there beside him, muttering Russian at a pace so quick that Yuuri cannot possibly keep up.

“Excuse me,” Yuuri says sheepishly, unsure why his voice sounds so gravelly, and so terribly, terribly familiar. “Could you speak English?”

“Vitya,” Yakov Feltsman scowls at him and complies, quite a bit shorter than Yuuri remembers, “If this is your attempt at being cute before destroying the competition, I am too tired to deal with it.”

“Just a dream, then,” Yuuri mumbles in his best impression of Victor, closing his eyes and coming back to himself in front of Yuuko and the triplets. The vision inspires the best mimicry of Victor’s FS for the season yet, and Yuuri feels tremendously relieved to get the performance out of his system.

Victor kisses his medal in Europe and Yuuri reads his score much later, after the media runs him ragged for the copycat video that the Nishigori triplets post.

//

Victor Nikiforov is at his house, which takes him completely by surprise.

The Russian man makes himself at home and is awfully forward towards Yuuri, who feels mediocre at best – he certainly doesn’t feel adequate enough to have enticed the biggest legend in recent skating history.

“I believe our connection runs deeper than most,” Victor tells him one of those first nights at dinner, when he’s still bombarding Yuuri with questions and the Japanese man awkwardly avoids skin-to-skin contact.

Yuuri’s not sure why Victor sounds so confident about that, until, one day, the switch happens, and neither of them can deny it.

It’s still fairly early on in the season. Yuri Plisetsky storms back to Russia with a scowl on his face and a thirst for revenge. Victor is infatuated with Yuuri, takes his time with the brunette, learns his ups and downs and softens his pupil ever-so-slowly.

And then, one day, Yuuri and Victor are running through the routine together, polishing _Eros_ , and suddenly, Yuuri’s limbs feel bolder.

Skating is _difficult_. His legs feel like gelatin and he’s exhausted, but all the same, he feels enthralled to be out on the ice.

He looks to the side, expecting to look up at Victor, to beam at his new coach in pride, but instead, he finds himself, grinning like a child.

Yuuri doesn’t remember the last time he saw his own reflection so clearly, or the last time he had smiled so buoyantly. He looks down at his hands, which are pale and large, eyes trailing further down to the black sweatshirt tied around his waist, realization dawning on him in horror.

“I _told_ you there was something more to us,” Victor says through _his body_ , obviously feeling strange in Yuuri’s skin. “Every once in a while, things would feel off. As I keep exploring this city, I’m realizing that it feels _familiar_.” Victor – who is currently short and brown-haired and unmistakably Yuuri Katsuki in body – pulls his student into his arms. “I could only hope that my hunch was right.”

Yuuri squeaks and stills, his heart thumping awkwardly in his chest as Victor’s proximity, for all that Victor is hugging _himself_. “You came here on a hunch?”

“Oh, I came here for many reasons,” Victor replies, his voice suddenly deeper and his body the one that he belongs in. Yuuri is flushed as Victor loops his long arms around his narrow waist. “That was just one of them, and one day, I’ll help you understand why this connection means so much to me.”

“And today?” Yuuri asks hesitantly, slowly skating out of Victor’s tight hold.

“Today, we work on your combination spin. Chop, chop!”

Yuuri obeys, falling into position.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that Victor has one hand on his sharp chin and that the older man is smiling.

//

“I just don’t understand,” Yuuri says, sighing as he takes a break from his FS composition to lift Victor up. Which is to say, he’s lifting his own body, and _damn it_ , even when he’s in shape, his hips are still wide under Victor’s fingers. “We’re switching _more_ often now that we live together. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe it’s not _supposed_ to make sense,” Victor replies, his voice much shriller than his Russian-bodied tone, and it makes Yuuri flinch to hear how strange he must sound to others. “I, for one, am loving this. I can’t believe you never touch yourself or take care of your skin. Fate is cruel, and your ass is gorgeous.”

“ _Please stop talking about my ass in my body_ ,” Yuuri says the words in one breath, hissing as Victor’s knees give a little bit while they spin. As soon as he moves to dip Victor, he’s suddenly finding himself crashing into the ice, back to his olive-skinned personage once more. “This is stupid. We _have_ to figure this out.”

“I don’t know,” Victor hums, pulling Yuuri up and properly cradling the Japanese man in his arms this time. “I think it’s kind of cool, so long as it doesn’t interfere with competitions.”

Yuuri’s face drains immediately. “Oh god. I didn’t even think of that.”

Victor shrugs. “It never has before. Have a little faith, Yuuri. Everything will work itself out.”

The shorter man lets his scowl soften as Victor smiles, eternally weak to the looks of the gorgeous Russian. “One day at a time. Just gonna…take things one day at a time.”

“That’s all we can do,” Victor hums in agreement, draping himself over Yuuri’s shoulders and laughing when the two of them slide forward on the ice. “Let’s do some more pairs poses before we work on your triple toe loop.”

“When would we ever do this routine?”

Victor thinks about it for a minute, letting Yuuri sidle behind him and take the lead. “I don’t know, but we’ll make it a big event. Let the whole world be jealous of us.”

Yuuri snorts, and he looks more at ease than Victor has seen him in months. “Sure,” the younger man says, dipping Victor even more easily than Victor had dipped him. Victor quietly thinks that Yuuri’s core is exceptionally impressive. “Whatever you say.”

Right then and there, Victor knows he’s going to get this man up on a podium and take the world by storm.

//

Just before the Cup of China, Yuuri has an online meeting with his best friend in Thailand. “Switching bodies?” Phichit’s voice is loud and scandalized, so Yuuri hurriedly shushes him. “With _Victor_? That sounds like one of your wet dreams.”

Yuuri squeaks and glares at his friend, turning red. “Alright, maybe it sounds like something I would have made up, but I’m serious. Just this morning, I woke up in his bed with Makkachin, and then suddenly, I was back in my room again.”

“How long does it last?” Phichit asks, putting one hand to his chin and humming. “It doesn’t seem like it’s so bad if it’s not interfering with your life as a whole, except I’m sure it’s gotta suck to like…have your lifelong celebrity crush roaming around in your body from time to time.”

The Japanese man groans. “It’s _horrible_. Did my face always look so splotchy? Why didn’t you make me put foundation over my raccoon eyes?”

“Because you were lazy and always slept in until the last second,” the caramel-skinned Thai man replies quickly, lips quirking into a smirk, “Besides, it was cute, watching you scramble around to get ready for class or practice.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Yuuri grunts. “Anyways, to answer your question, it never happens for long. Usually it’s just for a couple minutes. Maybe long enough to feel disoriented, like what most people would just consider a weird black-out. The longest time either of us can remember switching was for about ten minutes at practice, right around the time I had that SP competition with Yuri Plisetsky.”

“Alright. Let’s say I _do_ believe you,” Phichit lilts his voice and continues, “If you’re switching places with Victor, why is it happening? Is it affecting your skating at all?”

The Japanese man doesn’t answer – his body slumps forward. Phichit is nervous, and he yells that he’s going to text Victor, or an emergency service.

“Please don’t,” Yuuri grunts slowly, his voice rough and strange. The twenty-three-year-old doesn’t sound like himself. The Japanese man is sporting a nervous smile and pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s never worn glasses before.

For a minute, Phichit thinks back to what his friend had just said, and he gets nervous. Maybe Yuuri _hadn’t_ been joking _._

“Texting me would prove counter-intuitive,” Victor-as-Yuuri murmurs softly, his voice distinctly less demure and more sultry. “As I am currently Victor, and I’m sure that Yuuri is quite startled right now.”

Phichit puts a hand to his mouth, hiding a sly grin. “You weren’t doing anything indecent, were you?”

Victor’s responding smile is equal parts guilty and pleased. “I do have needs.”

“ _Victor_ ,” Yuuri says, his voice rough and patchy in the famous figure skater’s tonality. He bursts into his own room with a pale face lit on fire. In Victor’s body, he’s clutching the edges of the Russian man’s green robe, hiding his privates. “Hang up! Right _now_ . We’ve _got_ to figure this out.”

“Gotta go,” Victor says in a rush, pressing the _End Call_ button.

//

“I have a theory,” Victor murmurs as they finish checking their bags and head into the pre-checked security line.

“I’m listening.”

“I believe,” the older man keeps his voice level and unclasps his Rolex watch to put in a small bin, “That we’ve been switching during moments of high emotional and physical depth.”

The Japanese man gives his coach a flat look, clearly unimpressed. “Get to the point.”

Victor sighs dramatically, dragging his feet as the TSA woman gives him a stern expression, then lets him pass through. “Well, we’ve recently been switching bodies a lot, haven’t we? I can only think that the swaps are triggered by particularly significant events in my life, when my heart is beating out of control.” He pauses to run a hand through his hair, studying Yuuri’s expression carefully. “You’ve never felt anything like that?”

Honestly, if Yuuri digs through the annals of his brain – remembering being flushed when Victor had teased him about finding his true _eros_ , about the proximity and the black-outs, and—when he thinks back very far, his mind comes to a standstill.

“Victor,” Yuuri looks up at the taller man with panic written all over his expression. “What if…what if this has been happening since before we met?”

“Hmm?” Victor’s ice-blue eyes flick over Yuuri’s misty brown ones and he moves to pull the shorter man into his arms. “Do you remember anything like that happening?”

Yuuri _does_ remember. That’s the problem.

He remembers watching television with his friends, overjoyed and excited to watch Victor break the Junior world record. Remembers the tight knot in his throat when he made a decision to stick to figure skating instead of ballet dancing. Remembers—he remembers Victor’s hands, hot on himself when they switch, flushed and daring and sensitive all over.

His face drains of color. “No,” Yuuri dryly replies to the question, trying to keep his breathing even. “Not really.”

Now that he has a tentative cause for the body-switching, Yuuri grows nervous and wary, constantly trying to keep his deeper emotions under lock and key.

//

The first day of the Cup of China goes without a hitch.

The second – not so much.

Even as the tears fall and Yuuri can’t control the passionate rasp of his voice, he’s _certain_ that now – _now_ ; of all times – that’s when he’s going to swap with Victor, and his coach is going to feel all of the ugly feelings bubbling in his chest.

But, miraculously, Victor stays rooted in place, trying his best to placate Yuuri and failing. The younger man yells out his feelings and rushes up to the rink with red eyes and a wobbly lower lip.

Yuuri’s free skate that day is a thing of beauty. A stunning performance, shocking, thrilling. When he goes for the quad flip, the whole audience is on their feet, and Victor?

Yuuri’s eyes fly to Victor, his pupils blown wide. His feet are moving without him, thoughts racing, lips falling open. Then, Victor’s body weight is crashing down on him, and then his heart is _burning_ in his chest.

His own visage is below him, but he feels like Victor’s body is the one that had been performing out on the ice. Victor’s skin is clammy, his face is unbelievably strained, and his limbs are shaking.

“I had to surprise you,” Victor says with Yuuri’s lips, whispering with a soft smile, breath strained. They scramble up off of the ice, helping each other up, both of them with rushing pulses and wobbly legs.

“I _did_ ,” Yuuri whispers in Victor’s voice, expression startled, a flush over his pale cheeks. He puts a hand over the chest of this body, still staring at the other man in shock. “I did, didn’t I?”

Victor leans into him with a soft smile. “Absolutely.”

They switch back as soon as they link hands and hurry to the kiss-and-cry. Victor’s voice is a pleasant, low hum beside Yuuri while they answer questions from reporters, and he colors.

By the time they make it back to the hotel, both of them are flushed, burning so hot that they might as well be running temperatures.

“You did feel it,” Victor says, fingers resting on the corner of Yuuri’s soft lips. “That rush, everything bubbling out of me at once – we felt it at the same time, and then we swapped bodies.” When Yuuri looks back at him, gently parting his lips so that his tongue barely misses Victor’s pale hand, the shorter man is panting. “Do you feel it now?”

 _God yes,_ Yuuri thinks, eyelids flitting closed, almost moaning when Victor closes the door to their room and breathes heavily, pressing their faces together. He can’t be bothered to answer – he moves his hands so that they’re resting on Victor’s hips and tilts his head up so that their lips are ghosting over each other’s. “Victor,” he chokes the syllables out, starving for contact. It’s a plea, and Victor answers it by lapping into Yuuri’s mouth, slowly navigating the both of them to the single bed.

The kiss slowly, desperately, taking time to move tongues across teeth and break apart briefly to gasp for air. “I know you felt _something_ , because I was in your body.” Victor’s voice is like a deep caress, and his fingers are quickly working on prying clothing off of Yuuri’s body. “I feel it even _more_ now. What I wouldn’t give to spend one more moment in your head.” Victor’s fingers explore lower and Yuuri yelps. “You’re lovely when you blush.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Yuuri mumbles, blushing even more deeply at the comment. Victor latches onto his neck and he yelps, hands fumbling for purchase in Victor’s jacket. “Wait!” He feels fire burning in the pit of his stomach, arousal flaring quickly, and most importantly, the edge of a blackout is creeping into his vision. “Wait, it’s too much.”

Victor’s voice is foggy and far away. “Yuuri, are you dizzy? Because. I’m—” Victor trails off and then, suddenly, the two of them have swapped once again.

Victor – in Yuuri’s body – is breathless and soft at the edges. Yuuri looks down at his own body, at how lewd he looks even though his costume isn't even all the way off, and he covers his mouth.

“Like what you see?” Victor hums, running tan hands up Yuuri’s body and shimmying out of the tight, lacy number for Yuuri’s free skate. Yuuri reaches for him, sputtering.

“Stop! Stop doing that with my body, Victor,” Yuuri wails, watching the older man pause and throw a sultry look over his shoulder.

“You don’t like it?” Yuuri awkwardly colors at the low sound of his own voice, at Victor putting on his bedroom eyes in a foreign body. His heart is racing, so he chalks it up to Victor’s natural reaction to Yuuri undressing, even if this whole situation is ridiculous. “Look at your body, Yuuri. Look at me.” Victor is smiling, and Yuuri’s heart feels like it’s close to stopping. When Victor reaches for his hand, Yuuri yelps, feeling oversensitive in Victor’s skin. “I can feel how you feel. You can feel how I do when I look at you. It’s amazing.”

They both close their eyes and feel each other’s pulses until they switch back, panting and wide-eyed. Yuuri feels close to crying, starving for gentle contact. He’s exhausted and he feels like his legs might fall off, but he still wants to feel connected to Victor.

“Let me get you cleaned up, beautiful,” Victor says, keeping his voice at a low hum while he smiles. “You worked hard for that silver today. Tomorrow’s a rest day, and then you’ll have the exhibition the day afterwards.” Yuuri still feels keyed up, feels like he’s going to starve and pass out in the same breath, but he nods.

He almost moans when Victor’s hands slide down his sides, carefully hanging the costume in the closet. Once he’s undressed, he shivers and struggles to maintain his calm, but Victor just coos.

“Look at you,” Victor runs his hands over the strong planes of Yuuri’s chest, watching his lover’s chest heave, entranced. There are bruises and scratches, and a slightly swollen curve to the underside of Yuuri’s ribs that he knows should probably be iced down in the morning. “So graceful. So beautiful.”

Yuuri remembers looking at Victor with his own face, so calm and infatuated that it was almost infuriating. “Yeah? Well, how did it feel to look at yourself?”

“I have seen myself a million times,” Victor says softly, slipping the tights off of Yuuri’s legs and moving to his suitcase for pajama pants. “But photos could never carry the amount of life you bring to my expressions. It’s truly a sight to behold.” Yuuri watches his old idol bend to his knees and slide a sweatshirt and pants over his aching skin in awe. His blue eyes flick up with mirth, laughing when Yuuri turns and squeaks in response. “You’re still so shy. I showed the whole world how I felt about you today, you know?”

Yuuri throws him a half-hearted glare. “Yes, I’m aware. You just better be glad I like you, or I’d be pretty upset with you.”

Victor helps Yuuri lie down in bed, chuckling. He kisses the shorter man’s hand. “I’m glad that you like me, then.” Yuuri realizes what he’s said and mutters in embarrassment, cheeks becoming ruddy.

The older man turns to leave and sit on his own bed, but Yuuri jerks his arm out, caramel eyes determined, even though he looks like he could cry at any moment. “Hey,” Yuuri murmurs, casually flicking his gaze from Victor’s neck – a safe zone – up to Victor’s dazzling eyes. “You don’t, um. You don’t have to go.”

Victor stops in place, a heartfelt smile blooming on his face. “Yeah? We might switch again, you know.”

Yuuri gives him a small, wary look. “You’re really that excited to lay next to me?”

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says, pulling his hand away only to start shedding layers. “I’m excited to stand next to you.” Once he’s finished changing, lying beside his dark-haired beauty, Victor hums. “You never how long things like this will last. Every moment I get truly live in your shoes is precious to me. I love it.”

“You’re strange.” Yuuri huffs out a laugh. “What if this never stops? What if this is just how things _are_ with us?”

“Then we learn to appreciate it,” Victor offers, yawning quietly. “Now, perhaps your adrenaline is running high, but I am deliriously tired. Let’s sleep for now.”

The comfort of Victor’s warmth lulls him to sleep eventually, even if his mind is on overdrive. His body is tired and heavy and he feels boneless with the breath of another person rhythmic against his back.

//

For _weeks_ , the two of them go through the rigors of practice and life with the underlying knowledge that they could switch any time. They both argue about how long they had been alternating bodies, but neither of them can land on a specific date. There are lots of moments that _could_ have been the first exchange, but it’s hard to say now.

The Rostelecom Cup is a _mess_. Yuuri’s SP is gorgeous and entrancing – Victor is proud, because his student is truly becoming an entertainer, and that’s what makes skaters stand out on the ice. Then, they are parted, but the 48 hours of physical separation pass in a haze.

For a long moment, Victor thinks he’s going to black out in front of the television and swap places with Yuuri, even though this terrifies him. They’ve never switched for a competition before, and he doesn’t want to start now – not when Yuuri is _so close_ to showing the whole world what he’s capable of.

They both pass through long fogs. Victor can see the ice swimming below him. Yuuri can feel tears welling in his eyes as Makkachin lets out low whimpers.

At the end of the day, Yuuri keeps his emotions buried well enough to get focused and skate his FS – _their_ FS. It helps that they’re miles apart – the lack of proximity makes the body switches far more brief, even if they are happening frequently because their emotions are skyrocketing, both of them filled with enough grief and anxiety to fuel a very sad film.

Once they are reunited, the two of them lean on each other in the airport. Victor drags a softly sniffling Yuuri back to his family’s inn, then squeezes his hand on the stairs. They come to a stop in front of Victor’s room, having opted to leave his luggage behind on the main floor for the time being.

“You could come in,” the older man offers, keeping his voice level.

Yuuri’s lower lip wobbles. His eyes hurt from crying, his legs hurt from running, and he feels as though he could collapse at any moment, but his longing for Victor is desperate and his heart lurches. “Yeah, alright,” the younger man mumbles, tightening his hold on Victor’s fingers and sucking in a breath when he crosses the threshold of the old banquet room.

Both of them go to opposite corners of the room to put on robes after Victor fishes two sets out of the closet. They peel back the covers and lie down, listening to Mari sidle past them with Makkachin hot on her heels, pulses racing.

As soon as Yuuri’s head is on the pillow and the rest of the inn falls relatively quiet, most of its inhabitants sequestered in their rooms or entertaining guests, Victor’s blue eyes fall align with Yuuri’s long-lashed brown irises. Victor nervously closes his eyes and bows his head so that it’s just moments away from Yuuri’s shoulder. “If we switched right now,” Victor murmurs, “Do you know what I would do?”

“No,” Yuuri replies quickly, pulse racing at the words. “What?”

“I would touch you,” his coach keeps his voice barely steady, a small smile tickling the edge of his lips. Yuuri yelps, cheeks suddenly burning, but he doesn’t move away like he would have just weeks ago. “I’m serious, Yuuri. Of course, I’ve wanted to touch you for a long time, so perhaps it’s mostly a selfish desire, but I think that I want you to see it.” Victor scooches just a bit closer to Yuuri, moves so that his arm rests on Yuuri’s waist and his lips are within kissing distance. “You could see what you look like, coming undone. Absolutely breathless, gorgeous.”

“I’m not,” Yuuri assures him, voice cracking and hysteria creeping into his tone. “I’m not, Victor. It would still be _you_ in my body; it’s different.”

“It’s _different_ ,” Victor says confidently, and just seconds later, his wish is granted. “You can see what I can. What I saw today, at that competition. You made it to the Grand Prix fair and square, even if you barely qualified.” Victor pulls the covers down and runs a hand slowly down the side of Yuuri’s body. “Look, Yuuri. I could show you.” Victor crosses Yuuri’s arms over Yuuri’s waist, a bashful look in his eyes. “Do you want me to?”

This is a stupid plan. A very, very bad idea. Yuuri doesn’t find his own visage erotic in _any way_ , and the fact that Victor’s offering is horrifying.

But.

 _But_.

( _I could show you._ The words are haunting.)

“Don’t touch me _down there_ ,” Yuuri stammers, his voice raspy and strange in Victor’s body. “And, and don’t, um. Talk too much.”

“Alright,” Victor agrees easily, untying the _jinbe_ at the waist and pulling the trousers down to his knees. He slowly runs hands over Yuuri’s shoulders, over the slim curves of his abdomen, which is flat for the competition season. Then he focuses on Yuuri’s hips – wide, littered with stretch marks, and a source of flustered embarrassment for the younger skater. Victor notices that Yuuri is flinching away from looking, and he reaches for Yuuri’s hand. “Look, Yuuri.” Victor moves his body’s pale, sweaty hand to the soft curve of Yuuri’s own skin, dragging it from the dips of his pelvis to the hard cut of his thighs. “You have to _see_ what I see.”

He sucks in a shaky breath and nods, pushing long silvery bangs out of his eyes.

“This body made it back to me,” Victor hums, palms flat on Yuuri’s bruised feet, noting a bruise on Yuuri’s calves. “ _You_ made it through Moscow by yourself. You broke through, Yuuri.” He flicks watery caramel eyes up and then the two of them swap again, sobs choking Victor when he comes back to his own body. “That’s the body that showed the world what they were missing. You see?”

Yuuri’s crying too, and he pulls his robe on properly before falling into Victor’s arms, both of them weeping softly. “Yeah,” Yuuri whispers softly, trying very hard to hold back a hiccup. “Thank you.”

Anxiety creeps at the edges of all his thoughts, and sometimes, it helps for someone else to break through the barriers by any means necessary to tell him to get his shit together.

//

Barcelona is a trip. Yuuri and Victor go through a rollercoaster of emotions and jolts throughout the duration of their travels. Victor rides in the coach seat with a ring burning in his pocket; Yuuri stammers and pulls away like he hasn’t in _months_ ; the sudden distance makes both of them skittish.

Once they have rings settled on their fingers, it feels like the world is properly aligned. Yuuri’s heart is full and heavy as they wander through the streets. He squeaks at dinner where Victor declares Yuuri’s victory to all the other skaters with a flourish, flashing their gold rings at the competition.

They dash to their hotel, giggling madly. Victor tugs Yuuri along part of the way; then the younger man picks up Victor’s slack and leads the race back. Both of them grin like madmen as they kick off their shoes and pull on the lapels of each other’s coats.

“If we switch right now,” Victor breathes heatedly, mouthing at the area around Yuuri’s jaw, “I am going to be so terribly frustrated.”

“Then stay focused,” Yuuri rasps the words, fisting his right hand in Victor’s hair and pulling the taller man down for another slow kiss. “I want this too, you know, and I’ll be damned if we swap right now, so stay with me.”

Yuuri puts his weight on Victor, backing the Russian man into the wall and making Victor gasp when Yuuri stops kissing him and grinds their hips together. Victor tosses his head back and his eyes reflexively close, tongue almost lolling out of his mouth. “ _Oohh_ ,” Victor hums softly, looping his hands at the small of Yuuri’s back and pulling the smaller man tight against him once more. This time, Yuuri curses softly and both of their cheeks are flushed hot.

Both of them kiss and grind and fumble to undress until they’re stripped down to their underwear and panting on the bed, eyes misty and breaths hot.

Victor is the one to eventually ask the difficult question. “Do you want to…do anything more?”

Yuuri gives his boyfriend – his _fiancé,_ now – a lukewarm stare, lips pressed flat. After a moment, he rolls his eyes and shifts so that he’s got his knees on of either side of Victor’s hips. “Yes,” Yuuri whispers softly, reaching for Victor’s right hand and tugging the pale extremity to the soft curls just over his penis. “I know things could go wrong, but I want to.” His face flares up again after he says the words, awkwardly pushing his glasses properly up on his nose. “Unless _you_ don’t want to?”

Victor licks his lips, chuckling softly, a flush dusting all of his skin pink. “I want to.” He slips his fingers the slick underside of Yuuri’s thighs, both of them hissing when the ring catches on Yuuri’s left leg. Yuuri gives Victor a wobbly smile before reaching down to pull Victor’s cock into his hand. It’s warm and soft, awkwardly shaped in his hand, and when Victor yelps, Yuuri remembers that the silver-haired man is horridly hypersensitive.

“Sorry,” Yuuri bashfully murmurs, rubbing his finger on the head of his fiancé’s cock and pursing his lips when Victor gapes, staring at him in awe. “Does it feel bad when I do that?”

Victor’s fingers slip over Yuuri’s balls and he howls, bending over and turning hot red on top of Victor’s chest. “Feels a little bit like that, darling.” Victor goes further and fully grasps Yuuri’s penis, rough palms sliding over him. “Oh, god, we’ll need lube.”

Yuuri sits up on unsteady knees, his chest heaving. His dark eyes follow Victor around the room, the older man awkwardly flitting about and digging through their things for the water-silicone hybrid lubricant. His nostrils flare as Victor puts the gel on his shaking hands, grinning widely.

As soon as they settle next to each other on the bed again, their shared vision begins to blur.

“Can’t tell who I am right now,” Yuuri mumbles, voice somewhere between the low timbre of his Russian fiancé’s and his own lilting, accented English. Their fingers are moving absently, slick against each other as their dicks are pressed close, foreskins moving with the movements and reddish heads sliding together. Victor and Yuuri close their eyes, Victor’s left hand and Yuuri’s awkwardly keeping up the rhythm, both of them sure that they’re swapping bodies, but it keeps happening over and over and over again, so they get lost in sensation. “Feels good.”

“Let’s just be _us_ ,” Victor says, his voice traveling between bodies as well, pre-cum beading over somebody’s penis – maybe both of theirs. They’re both a mess now. “That’s— _oh, god, Yuuri_ —that’s, that’s all I want. Just us.”

“Mm,” Yuuri hums in assent, an orgasm spilling out of him with a soft whine. Victor comes quickly after he does, both of them barely opening their eyes and gasping for air.

They flop down, hair messily spilling on the pillows. Victor giggles and Yuuri buries his face. “Can’t believe we switched like that. How refreshingly novel.”

Yuuri groans again, burying his face in the pillows. “Why are you so _sensitive_ , jeez? I can still feel it.” His chest hurts, and his groin still feels like Victor’s fingers are lingering there.

“What can I say,” Victor’s tone is soft and lyrical. “With you, everything is _different_. I don’t think that I’ve ever come so quickly in my life.”

The tips of Yuuri’s ears are burning red even though they’re both still blissfully naked. “You are so embarrassing.”

Victor dips down and kisses Yuuri’s right shoulder. “Sure am. Get used to it.”

//

Things grow quiet between them for a few weeks. After the torrent of emotions both of them hurtle through for the first few days in Barcelona, Yuuri makes Victor cry. Yuuri had spent days languishing in bed with Victor, horribly in love and hungry for more contact even though neither of them can seem to figure out what triggers the body swaps.

Victor yells at him that night and Yuuri feels the tug, but for once, the ugly feeling in their heads doesn’t force them to black out and change places. “You’re acting like an idiot,” Victor spits the words out, stalking out of the hotel room.

Yuuri’s head pounds, and he feels like he’s on the cusp of having a panic attack. Instead of facing the oncoming wave of hypersensitivity and shallow breathing, Yuuri’s mind goes into a full shut down, so he feels totally numb. He stares at the door long after his coach leaves.

For the first time in ages, he has no idea what Victor’s thinking, and he has no way of finding out.

He wakes up in the morning and Victor is in lying on the second hotel mattress, but he doesn’t look like he’s slept at all. Red rings line Victor’s eyes as they head to the rink. They get ready in total silence, refusing to lock eyes.

Yuuri steels himself for a lecture, taking Victor’s hands and hoping that he’ll be able to convey his feelings without many words. As if sensing his underlying strain, Victor grabs Yuuri’s right hand and gives him a piece of his mind.

 _I gave up everything for you,_ Victor might as well have said. _Show me that you want this. That you want all of me._

Yuuri’s reply is a slap in the face as much as it is a work of art.

 _Here it is_ , Yuuri’s skating replies. _Here you are, living on inside of me._

Victor cries, emotion bubbling out of him furiously. He rushes off of the ice to find the young blonde from Russia while his adrenaline is still running high, fervently panicked that he’ll switch with his lover. He can’t – he has to control himself and communicate with his old coach and rink mate before his time runs out.

The silver-haired man is begging, but perhaps not with his words. His eyes say enough.

Time stands still when the scores are announced. Victor holds his breath.

Yuuri’s face falls. Yuri Plisetsky continues to cry, but his tears are falling in relief instead of anxiety this time.

The Japanese man sheepishly presents his silver medal, and after they exchange sharp wits, Yuuri falls in his lap, tears stinging the edge of his brown eyes. “Please be my coach for the next year, Victor,” Yuuri whispers, voice broken.

“More,” Victor helplessly whines, blue eyes watery, threatening to close as he laughs hysterically. “Yuuri. Don’t be an asshole.”

Oh, god. They are so stupid. So _in love_ , and so incredibly, infuriatingly stupid.

They switch bodies for the last time.

//

Victor – that is to say, Victor in Yuuri’s body – adjusts the bag on his shoulder and sniffles. “Your body feels like shit,” Victor coughs lightly, fingers toying with the Japanese jersey over his shoulders.

“Of course it does.” Yuuri murmurs back, his voice subdued and a bit faraway. “Just used it to break _somebody’s_ world record, thanks.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” the man who is currently shorter snorts. He holds out his hand to Yuuri, reveling in the contact even though they’ve been swapped for well over an hour now. “You did really great, you know. I mean it.”

Yuuri lowers his lashes, blue eyes soft and slightly out of focus. “You’re not angry with me?”

“No,” Victor squeezes his hand, taking special care to rub the ring on his right hand. He likes the feeling of the metal underneath Yuuri’s fingers. “I’m not angry. I was _inspired_ yet again.”

He likes the way Yuuri wears a blush in his body. It makes him look boyish and innocent, two things Victor has not been called in a very long time. “You’re _my_ inspiration, Victor. I needed you to see that tonight.” After a pause, he looks down at their connected, mismatched hands. “You don’t think we’ll have to skate the exhibition like this, do you?”

Victor shrugs, black hair falling over Yuuri’s wire-rimmed glasses as he tips his head up. “Who cares if we do? You know the steps for leading and following. We could switch roles at any given time.”

Yuuri thinks that they already switch leads plenty of times already. Both of them look at each other in the elevator of their hotel and laugh breathlessly.

Tears prick at both of their eyes as they step off and pace down the hall. They slip back into their proper bodies as soon as they tumble into the room, unable to stop hugging each other and wailing like babies.

“Oh, god,” Yuuri sobs, “God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I acted like a selfish asshole.”

“Little bit, yeah,” Victor sniffles, digging his nose into Yuuri’s shoulder, so busy with being close to Yuuri that he forgets for a minute that his lover had almost broken up with him less than twenty-four hours ago, and is also getting snot on his three-thousand-dollar coat.

Their sobs slowly quiet and the two of them slip into pajamas. Yuuri undresses with quiet words. “We never figured out why this happens, Victor. We figured everything else out, so…why this?” The waistband of his sweatpants snaps on his hips and he turns to his fiancé with a small pout. “Why do we keep switching?”

Victor chokes out a laugh. “You’re asking now? _Now_?”

“It’s important,” Yuuri mumbles. “You can’t properly come back to competing if you’re worried about switching with me at any given time.”

“Yuuri,” Victor pulls back so that he can give Yuuri the sturdiest glare he can manage. “I don’t _care_ why it started happening. I don’t care if it _keeps_ happening. Whatever the case may be, this? This is what brought us together.” He moves Yuuri’s hand to his chest.

Yuuri studies him with wide eyes, nodding slowly. “Right.”

“You don’t remember this,” Victor says, voice cracking and tears threatening to fall again, “But we switched this time last year.”

“What?” Yuuri’s heart races and he feels like a stone has been dropped in the pit of his stomach.

Victor huffs. “Remember the other night at dinner, when I showed you those pictures?”

Embarrassment floods Yuuri all over again and he mutters, “Yes, of course.”

The older man reaches for Yuuri, pulling the smaller man against him and breathing into Yuuri’s hair like he could lose his mind, like the Japanese man might disappear if he lets go. “Back then, you know,” Victor chokes out the syllables, his eyes already falling closed with the pressure of his emotions. “I thought. I really thought I was untouchable. That nobody would ever _really_ know how I felt, and then _you_ showed up.”

Yuuri nods along in a trance, dark eyes studying Victor’s complicated expression and wobbling lower lip.

Shakily, Victor continues, “I thought it was a weird out of body experience. It _was_ an out of body experience – a literal one – but I couldn’t have known that at the time. I just chalked up to the both of us being drunk out of our minds back then.”

Victor wraps his arms tight around Yuuri and then the waterworks are loose for both of them, fingers latched onto loose fabrics while they cry _again_ for what must be the fifth time that day.

“You _amazed_ me, and for those two minutes I was you, I thought, _this must be what I look like, absolutely dumbfounded and smitten_.” Victor opens his eyes to smile down at Yuuri, and then he reaches to wipe the younger man’s hot tears away. “Perhaps saying that it was love at first sight is a bit silly, but I’m certain that I fell for you that day. I keep falling in love with you the more I learn about you, the more I see, and the swapping? Maybe it was just something the universe set in motion to lead us to each other properly.”

“We kept doing it after we met, so that doesn’t make any sense,” Yuuri manages to get his words out, even if half of them are broken. “That honestly sounds too crazy to be true. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, well, it’s our reality,” Victor reminds him. Yuuri laughs and cries, burrowing into Victor’s hold, adjusting his position so that they can lie on the narrow bed side-by-side. “You want to deny it _now_?”

Yuuri remembers the solid feeling of the silver medal on his chest, the ugly anxiety of not feeling good enough, and the rush of passion and affection when Victor had said that he wanted Yuuri to get a gold medal at the Grand Prix five times in a row. To match _Victor Nikiforov’s_ own record. He’s walked in Victor’s shoes a multitude of times, and damn if the leather isn’t smooth and those silk socks aren’t the best things he’s ever felt. Even still, Yuuri’s stood next to the best skater in the world, and Victor’s proud of _Yuuri_.

Yuuri’s _been_ the best skater in the world, even if only for snatches of time, and all it proved was that he was still himself, no matter whose body he inhabited.

“If I had to switch with anyone in the world,” Yuuri eventually says, “I guess it might as well have been with the person I fell in love with, huh?”

Victor guffaws and breathes Yuuri in like he’s oxygen itself. “Yes. At least there’s that.”

//

[ _epilogue_ ]

Yuri Plisetsky gives them a dead stare when they tell him the story in St. Petersburg. “Switching bodies?”

Yuuri and Victor shrug in unison. The younger man smiles sheepishly. “It sounds pretty stupid, huh? I mean, there’s nothing to say it won’t happen again, but so far, neither of us have had it interfere with competitions, so at least there’s that.”

“So, basically,” the blonde says, lacing up his skates on the rink’s benches. “Victor was so narcissistic that he fell in love with himself in someone else’s body at Sochi last year?”

The older men flush hot and Victor sputters indignantly. “What! _No_ , Yura. I fell in love with Yuuri _before_ I knew that we had switched bodies. This was supposed to be a romantic story, like the old fairytales!”

“The old fairytales would have had Katsuki steal your body and all your medals, because they’re all gruesome as shit.” Yuuri snorts at that, but Victor looks absolutely appalled. Yuri looks pretty damn satisfied with Victor’s open disgust. “That sounds totally stupid, but good for you, I guess. Maybe you should teach your boyfriend how to _actually_ skate like you so I have some fucking competition this year.”

“ _Fiancé_ , now!” Victor corrects him loudly. “And watch your language! Yuuri is going to surpass you this season, just you wait!”

“Big talk,” Yuuri hums, sidling past him with a small smile as they walk out to the ice. “Thought you were supposed to make your grand return this year.”

“Oh, you can beat Yura any day of the week, my love,” Victor sing-songs, dragging a hand across Yuuri’s shoulders while they patter out to practice. “But I’ll still be coming for gold, of course.”

“We’ll see about that,” Yuuri replies with a quick wave, dashing away from Victor’s side to wave to Mila, Georgi, and Yakov, leaving the silver-haired legend gaping behind him.

Yakov eventually comes behind his oldest student and slaps him in the back. “Katsuki’s not going to be walking in your shadow forever, you fool. Get out there and practice.” Victor obeys with a little grumble, spending a few more minutes mooning over the love of his life before he quickly shifts to being a showoff and pissing all of his rink mates off – Katsuki included.

They don’t switch bodies any more, but they _do_ still practice pairs routines in the evenings, and they hold hands, bone tired, to feel the connection so deeply woven into their souls.

In a way, _that’s_ the payoff for all the trouble.

 


End file.
